


One Man's Trash

by Reaping



Series: Artsy April [7]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Future Fic, Hale Family Feels, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Open Ending, Pre-Slash, Rebuilding, Scott is a Good Friend, Stiles is a good friend, a little cracky too, brief mention of Kate Argent, canon compliant through season four, near the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-08
Updated: 2016-04-08
Packaged: 2018-05-31 23:38:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6492322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reaping/pseuds/Reaping
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>April 7th Prompt: Junk</p><p>“It’s all junk. Put it back where you got it.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Man's Trash

**Author's Note:**

> I'm doing a lovely challenge with some friends called Artsy April. They'll be doing art, but since I cannot draw or paint or sculpt or do basically anything art-related to save my life, I'm doing a daily fic. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> If I missed tags let me know. Concrit is always welcome and appreciated.

It took a few weeks and a lot of paperwork, but the old Hale property now officially belonged to Derek again. Stiles had helped get everything taken care of and was the first pack member to arrive at the site for the first day of demo. Derek was standing against the chain-link fence, fingers curled through the links, staring at the piles left behind from when the county reclaimed the property and started to tear the old house down. Stiles could tell from the set of his body that Derek was upset, who wouldn’t be. As far as he knew, this was the first time Derek had actually been back here since the time he stumbled on it when Kate had de-aged him. He could only imagine how painful it was to see the ruins the county had left behind – at least the house had still been mostly standing before. The sorrow he always felt here was creeping up on him, and he took a deep breath before moving towards Derek and calling out a greeting. The other man twisted his head enough to catch Stiles’ eye and nod his acknowledgement before turning back to look at what would eventually be the site of a new house. Stiles mirrored Derek when he reached the fence, lacing his fingers in the links and moving slightly towards the left so his arm brushed gently against Derek’s. Despite none of the pack openly admitting it, they were all just as tactile as he was, comforting touches coming more easily and regularly to all of them the more the pack settled.

The rest of the pack arrives and Derek uses bolt cutters to snap the lock holding the chain-link in place, dragging one side open while Stiles gets the other side. The construction’s cleanout crew rolled up just as the gate was opened and before they’d let anyone in to start clearing they insisted that every member of the pack grab a hardhat and goggles. Stiles was pretty sure Derek would rather do this with just the pack, but the way the property had been left demanded there be a safety crew on the premises, and if he wanted the human members of the pack there, they needed to be sure that someone else was checking the structural integrity of the foundation before they stepped onto the property. If the house hadn’t had the basement and tunnels it wouldn’t have been an issue. But it was, so here they were. The crew also brought the added benefit of dumpsters for the debris – having to haul rented ones out into the preserve would have been more of a hassle. Once the safety inspector cleared a section of the property, they got started. The inspector moved off to check the rest of the site in a grid pattern, marking danger zones that would require more careful removals.

The pack dug in, dragging chunks of plaster and charred bits of wood from the cleared zones over to the dumpsters. They started close together but began to spread out as more areas were cleared for working, trying to make sure the wolves hit the sections with the heavier lifting without giving away their supernatural strength. The day was mild, but the hard work in the sun had everyone sporting a sheen of sweat before too long. Stiles took a break to grab a bottle of water, dragging the cooler out of the back of his jeep and over to the fence so anyone else who needed a drink could more easily grab one. He glanced around the site and spotted Derek in a section that must have been one of the corners of the house before it had been bulldozed. The other man was dripping sweat, the muscles in his arms rippling as he yanked planks of burnt and broken wood up and flung them into the trash with a single-minded focus. Stiles had seen him like that before, working himself to the point of exhaustion. He sighed and grabbed a second bottled water, heading towards him. Two members of the cleanout crew were working in one of the flagged zones next to the section Derek had taken. As he got closer, Stiles could hear them talking to each other, probably not realizing that the man who hired them used to live in the house before it became the burnt out shell it was before the county started to tear it down. Or, at least, he tells himself they must not know when he hears what they’re saying.

“Look at all of this trash, the county should’ve just burned it the rest of the way to the ground instead of trying to demo it. Now we’ve gotta worry about falling through the unstable floors.”

“Seriously man, it was a hunk of junk for years – dunno why they ever left it up that long to begin with.”

He felt his mouth curl in distaste, eyes flicking to Derek to see the hard set of the other man’s jaw, was watching long enough to see the small flinch every time they said the area was filled with trash. Saw more flinches even after the men stopped speaking when they caught Stiles glaring at them. He wasn’t sure exactly of the cause until he let his eyes trail over the rest of the property, was able to see that every time Derek flinched, someone else was talking, probably about the mess they were clearing. His heart ached at the thought of Derek spending hours out here, throwing away the ruins of his past, listening to people call it junk, trash, garbage, a complete waste. He swallowed hard before reaching out to squeeze Derek’s shoulder, passing him the bottle of water when the other man looked up. Derek’s mouth twitched in a small sad smile as he accepted the water, eyes tightening again as someone else must have spoken. He patted Derek on the back and moved over to the adjacent section, starting to clear it out and seeing bits and pieces of what must have been furniture. He can see Derek slipping back into the work mode he’d been in before the slight interruption the bottle of water had been, and he can’t bear to see it. Can’t sit next to him and know that Derek is only a few feet away but lost completely in the pain of discarding the remnants of his pack, listening to people unknowingly add to it. So Stiles starts talking, babbling about the heat of the day, the nice break this is despite that, how glad he is to be done with college and closer to being a real adult. It seems to draw Derek out of his head a little, so he keeps it up. Starts asking him questions about the plans for the new house. Surprisingly, Derek answers him, volunteers more information than he really had to give. Stiles thinks that maybe he doesn’t want to hear the things being said either.

Everything’s fine until Derek shifts a section of what was probably flooring and uncovers a charred and broken chess piece. It’s a little cheesy, a Universal-style werewolf with a crown perched at a tilt on its head. The piece is snapped in half at the waist. He watches as Derek stares at it for a few long minutes, mouth parted, pain clear in his eyes. He can see them start to glass over, threatening tears, before he watches Derek do what he does best. It’s been a long while since he’s seen Derek with a completely blank expression, and he kind of hates it. He watches Derek struggle and then succeed in closing himself off. Watches him snatch up the pieces and chuck them towards the dumpster.

“Derek –” He’s cut off almost immediately.

“Shut up Stiles. Just…shut up.” It stings a little, how impersonal Derek’s voice is, but he knows now in a way he never did when he was sixteen just how much that tone means the opposite of what it implies. He knows it’s how Derek distances himself, keeps himself safe. He nods and moves away, carrying more hunks of wood to the dumpsters. His eyes land on the broken chess piece where it had fallen just short of actually going into one of the bins. He tosses the wood in his arms onto the steadily growing pile and crouches down, fingers brushing against the crown. An idea starts to form so he picks them up and shoves them deep into his pocket.

***

It takes almost a full week to clear everything – the further towards the center they got, the more unstable foundation became.  They’d finally received clearance to remove the last of the debris and the cleanout crew from the construction company was handling most of it. Stiles was surreptitiously grabbing some of the sturdier boards back out of the dumpster when he heard a throat clear behind him.

“What are you doing?”

“Uhhhh….” He’d gotten better at lying to werewolves in general, but he still wasn’t great at lying to Derek specifically. “Um, I just…some of it is salvageable?” Stiles didn’t mean to make it a question, but it was the best he could do to try and conceal what he was actually doing with the wood.

“Nothing here is worth saving.” He could hear the anger sparking in Derek’s voice, his fall back when he doesn’t want anyone to know he’s hurting. “It’s all junk. Put it back where you got it.” He just shakes his head, not sure how to argue his way out of this before deciding he’s not even going to try and instead moves to sidestep around Derek, the board grasped firmly in his hands. He’s not really surprised when an arm comes up to bar his way. “I said….Put. It. Back.” Stiles shakes his head again.

“No.” He steps further to the side, eyes skating across Derek’s face, seeing his jaw ticking in irritation. He feels bad, but he needs the board.

“Stiles. PUT IT BACK!” It’s almost a roar and Stiles can hear everyone else in the clearing stop what they’re doing. He can nearly feel their eyes. He grits his own jaw, fingers tightening on the piece of wood. He turns to face Derek fully, sees the devastation in his eyes, despite the angry set to his face, and feels it like a slap in the face. He mumbles out “fine” and tosses the board onto the top of the pile in the nearly full dumpster before marching to his jeep and taking off. He drives for a few hours, ignoring calls and texts from the rest of the pack. He hadn’t shared his thoughts with anyone, hadn’t had the time. He had spent every day of the last week helping to clear out the property so the new house can get started, and every night he’d been working on the project for Derek. He drives aimlessly until the sun is a bare line of light in the sky, then he turns the jeep back towards the preserve. He gets lucky when he finds the dumpsters still sitting there; he was worried that the crew would’ve removed it at the end of the day. The last board he needed is still sitting on top too – the notches, names and dates carefully printed next to each one, letting him know it’s the right piece. He slides it into the jeep’s backseat and is about to haul himself back in to go finish the project when a hand grips his arm. He startles, a yelp echoing in the cooling air as he spins.

“Stiles…he asked you to leave it. Why did you come back for it?” There’s no judgement on Scott’s face as he waits for an answer. He clears his throat, takes a breath, and tells Scott what he saw on the first day. He sees Scott’s eyes widen as he realizes they’d all unknowingly been adding to the already heartbreaking job of removing the last traces of the old pack. For all that Scott’s supposed to be their fearless leader, he’s really just a giant puppy who only wants everyone to be happy.

“God, Stiles, we didn’t mean…I didn’t think…” Stiles claps him on the arm, fingers tightening so Scott will listen to him.

“I know you didn’t.” Scott nods and Stiles gives him a small smile, gesturing at the passenger seat of the jeep. They both hop in and Stiles explains his plan. He drops Scott back at the house he shares with Kira now and then heads to his dad’s place to finish what he’d started. The piece he found today was the last bit he needed, and when it’s settled he smiles before passing out for the night. He’s up early the next morning, body conditioned after a week of early mornings to wake him. He shovels in breakfast and coffee before deciding he can’t wait anymore. He texts, because he’s not sure how upset with him Derek might still be.

**_Stiles:_ ** _Sourwolf – need you to check something out at my dad’s._

He doesn’t expect an answer right away so he grabs fresh clothes and steps into the shower, since he’d been too worn out for one the night before. He’s just finished rinsing his hair when the door bangs open, startling him so bad he slips and nearly falls head first into the faucet. An arm snakes around the shower curtain, hand catching him just before his forehead slams into the stainless steel and righting him.

“BOUNDARIES! Locked doors mean knocking, not barging in like the house is on fire. The house isn’t on fire is it?!?”

“No Stiles, but I might light you on fire.”

“What? Why? It’s too early for me to have done anything to warrant that today.”

“You texted me that you needed me to check something out and then you _didn’t answer your phone_ for almost an hour. I thought something was attacking you. I ran a red light, one of the ones with the automatic cameras. I’m going to get a ticket for nothing. And the rest of the department is going to joke about it.”

“Oh…uh…sorry? Also…can I have a towel?”

“What?”

“A towel? So I can get out of the shower?”

“Oh…right…yeah. Sorry.” Derek flips a towel around the edge of the shower curtain at him, releasing it as soon as Stiles tugs. He wraps it around his waist and waits until he hears the bathroom door pulled shut behind the other man. He steps out, drying quickly and tossing on the sweats and tank he’d had on before, grimacing at the busted out door lock – it wasn’t the first time it had needed replacing, but it wasn’t like doors were cheap either. He steps around the splintered bits of wood on the floor, making a note to clean it up later, and heading downstairs to find Derek. The other man is sitting at the kitchen table, cup of coffee steaming in front of him, slightly guilty look on his face. He looks up when Stiles walks in the room, pink tingeing his cheeks when Stiles smiles at him softly.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you worry, I just had something to show you. Follow me.” He flicks his head and turns towards the door that connects to the garage. He opens it enough to slip inside, waiting to flick on the light until Derek is there too. He watches Derek’s face carefully as the other man takes in the sight before him. “If you don’t want it I understand…I wasn’t sure when I started, but I wanted it to be something good you could keep from the house. If you don’t…” Stiles trails off, unsure where to go from there as Derek steps closer to the object sitting in the middle of the room. He watches as Derek trails his fingers across the surface, the pads gliding smoothly over the glossy top.

“You built me a desk?” Derek twists his head to look at Stiles, eyes a little wide, before continuing his inspection, eyes flitting across the surface, the built on shelves, the small shadowboxes.

“Yeah. Everything came from the house. There were a lot of good boards still.” He sees it when Derek moves around to the back, the sudden freeze to his movement before one hand goes up to trace the back he’d picked for the shelf part of it. He can see Derek’s lips mouthing the names that match the notches – he’d had a wall like that as a child too, one that marked his height as he grew. After his mom passed, neither he nor his dad had bothered keeping up with it. When Derek steps around the desk there are tears spilling silently down his face. “Oh god, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you hurt more Derek. I’m so sorry. I thought this would –” Derek’s shaking his head, striding forward, palm covering Stiles’ mouth before he can finish his thought.

“Thank you, Stiles. Thank you.” It’s almost a whisper, soft and full of emotion, and Derek wraps his arms around Stiles as he says it, pulling him close. Stiles bows his head onto Derek’s shoulder, holding him back just as tightly. Derek relaxes into the hug for a moment, and before Stiles knows what he’s doing his lips are pressed into the other man’s shoulder, a soft kiss of comfort, far more intimate than he should be with someone who isn’t family. He tenses, tries to pull back, but Derek stops him with a hand on his nape, gently squeezing before his own head turns and he presses a gentle kiss to Stiles’ temple. He gives Stiles’ neck one more squeeze before he lets him pull out of the hug, lips curved in a small smile as he turns back to the desk, looking at the small bits of his past that Stiles found while digging through the rubble. He lets out a laugh at the contents of the last shadowbox built into the shelves. In it sits the broken werewolf king, now glued carefully back together, its eyes painted red. Beneath it, written on the wood in Stiles’ familiar scrawl are a few words.

‘ _I’m the Alpha now._ ’

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [tumblr](jennthereaper.tumblr.com) if you're so inclined.


End file.
